On Saturday, May 28, more than 100 people gathered in the village park for a celebration of his retirement.

Stories circled through the air as many Candelo residents and regular customers of the town's service station shared their memories of Mr Anderson.

Mr Anderson, now 73 years old, said he loved running the business and meeting the regulars every day.

"It's been an amazing place to work and I've met a lot of people over the years," he said.

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Mr Anderson said he always appreciated how warmly the Candelo residents had welcomed him into their community.

"I've just been really thrilled with the way the community accepted me, you hear all these stories how foreigners don't feel welcome but I felt completely relaxed and at home here," he said.

Mr Anderson has passed on the store to new owners Baven and Jamahl in May, who come from New Zealand just like the former owner.

"I was very happy when they decided to buy it, because they're country people at heart and good hard workers," he said.

Mr Anderson said he would have kept going longer but he was encouraged by his family to stop working.

"I've loved every minute of it and I'd still keep going, but my kids told me it was time to retire and do some things for myself," he said.

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At first Mr Anderson didn't agree to retire, so his kids tried a different method to convince him and surprised him with an organised trip overseas for his 70th birthday.

"My youngest daughter said I'm going to take you for a trip and I said 'yeah is it overseas?', because I hadn't been anywhere overseas and she said 'we're going to climb Mount Everest'."

Mr Anderson said he really enjoyed the adventure and before long things were moving forward for him to sell the business and retire.

Mr Anderson said he had been initially drawn to Candelo by some friends who owned a large plot of land in the area and used to invite him over frequently.

"Every holidays he'd ring up and say 'we're going down to the farm, do you want come down and spend the weekend with us?'," he said.

One day his friend brought him round to the service station and said he thought Mr Anderson ought to buy the business which had been put on the market.

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Mr Anderson said he was dubious of making such a big investment at first, however he was so drawn to the lifestyle and community, he decided to take the leap of faith.

"We said 'why don't we give it a punch?', so we came down and never looked back," he said.

One of Mr Anderson's good friends and coordinator of the gathering on Saturday afternoon, David Heffernan said "Eric has always been a tremendous community person".

"He came here in 1986 and stayed right through until 2022. He's been through drought, fire, floods, COVID and he's always stayed with us, he's been tremendous," Mr Heffernan said.

Mr Heffernan said Mr Anderson was a true gentleman who always treated each person that arrived at his store with respect and care.

"He still came out to the car to fill it up, like the old ways and he especially did it for women like a real gentleman," he said.

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Mr Heffernan said he had cards filled with messages from community members on the day, who wanted to thank Mr Anderson for all he had done over the years.

Mr Heffernan said Mr Anderson was a humble man who would never have thrown a party for the occasion, so they had decided to throw one for him.

"We were all here today to say thank you and for always looking out for everybody," he said.